CHAPTER XVIII. REGGIOBy its natural situation Reggio is marked for an unquiet history. It was a gateway of Magna Graecia; it lay straight in the track of conquering Rome when she moved towards Sicily; it offered points of strategic importance to every invader or defender of the peninsula throughout the mediaeval wars. Goth and Saracen, Norman, Teuton and Turk, seized, pillaged, and abandoned, each in turn, this stronghold overlooking the narrow sea. Then the earthquakes, ever menacing between Vesuvius and Etna; that of 1783, which wrought destruction throughout Calabria, laid Reggio in ruins, so that to-day it has the aspect of...
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CHAPTER XVII. THE GROTTAAbout a mile beyond Squillace the line passes by a tunnel through the promontory of Mons Moscius. At this point on the face of the sea-cliff I was told that I should discover a _grotta_, one of the caverns which some think are indicated by Cassiodorus when he speaks of his fish-preserves. Arrived near the mouth of the tunnel I found a signal-box several railway men were grouped in talk; to them I addressed myself, and all immediately turned to offer me guidance. We had to clamber down a rocky descent, and skirt the waves for a...
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CHAPTER XVI. CASSIODORUSThe iron way crosses the mouth of the valley river. As I had already noticed, it was a turbid torrent, of dull yellow; where it poured into the sea, it made a vast, clean-edged patch of its own hue upon the darker surface of the waves. This peculiarity resulted, no doubt, from much rain upon the hills; it may be that in calmer seasons the Fiume di Squillace bears more resemblance to the Pellena as one pictures it, a delightful stream flowing through the gardens of the old monastery. Cassiodorus tells us that it abounded in fish. One of...
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CHAPTER XV. MISERIA"What do people do here?" I once asked at a little town between Rome and Naples; and the man with whom I talked, shrugging his shoulders, answered curtly, "_C'e miseria_"--there's nothing but poverty. The same reply would be given in towns and villages without number throughout the length of Italy. I had seen poverty enough, and squalid conditions of life, but the most ugly and repulsive collection of houses I ever came upon was the town of Squillace. I admit the depressing effect of rain and cloud, and of hunger worse than unsatisfied; these things count emphatically in my...
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CHAPTER XIV. SQUILLACEIn meditating my southern ramble I had lingered on the thought that I should see Squillace. For Squillace (Virgil's "ship-wrecking Scylaceum") was the ancestral home of Cassiodorus, and his retreat when he became a monk; Cassiodorus, the delightful pedant, the liberal statesman and patriot, who stands upon the far limit of his old Roman world and bids a sad farewell to its glories. He had niched himself in my imagination. Once when I was spending a silent winter upon the shore of Devon, I had with me the two folio volumes of his works, and patiently read the better...
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CHAPTER XIII. THE BREEZY HEIGHTCatanzaro must be one of the healthiest spots in Southern Italy; perhaps it has no rival in this respect among the towns south of Rome. The furious winds, with which my acquaintances threatened me, did not blow during my stay, but there was always more or less breeze, and the kind of breeze that refreshes. I should like to visit Catanzaro in the summer; probably one would have all the joy of glorious sunshine without oppressive heat, and in the landscape in those glowing days would be indescribably beautiful. I remember with delight the public garden at...
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CHAPTER IX. MY FRIEND THE DOCTORIn the morning I arose as usual, though with difficulty. I tried to persuade myself that I was merely suffering from a violent attack of dyspepsia, the natural result of _Concordia diet. When the waiter brought my breakfast I regarded it with resentful eye, feeling for the moment very much like my grumbling acquaintance of the dinner hour. It may be as well to explain that the breakfast consisted of very bad coffee, with goat's milk, hard, coarse bread, and goat's butter, which tasted exactly like indifferent lard. The so-called butter, by a strange custom of...
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CHAPTER VIII. FACES BY THE WAYThe wind could not roar itself out. Through the night it kept awaking me, and on the morrow I found a sea foamier than ever; impossible to reach the Colonna by boat, and almost so, I was assured, to make the journey by land in such weather as this. Perforce I waited. A cloudless sky; broad sunshine, warm as in an English summer; but the roaring _tramontana was disagreeably chill. No weather could be more perilous to health. The people of Cotrone, those few of them who did not stay at home or shelter in the...
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CHAPTER VII. COTRONENight hid from me the scenes that followed. Darkling, I passed again through the station called Sybaris, and on and on by the sea-shore, the sound of breakers often audible. From time to time I discerned black mountain masses against a patch of grey sky, or caught a glimpse of blanching wave, or felt my fancy thrill as a stray gleam from the engine fire revealed for a moment another trackless wood. Often the hollow rumbling of the train told me that we were crossing a bridge; the stream beneath it bore, perhaps, a name in legend or in...
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CHAPTER VI. THE TABLE OF THE PALADINSFor two or three days a roaring north wind whitened the sea with foam; it kept the sky clear, and from morning to night there was magnificent sunshine, but, none the less, one suffered a good deal from cold. The streets were barer than ever; only in the old town high, close walls afforded a good deal of shelter, was there a semblance of active life. But even here most of the shops seemed to have little, if any, business; frequently I saw the tradesman asleep in a chair, at any hour of daylight....
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CHAPTER V. DULCE GALAESI FLUMENTaranto has a very interesting Museum. I went there with an introduction to the curator, who spared no trouble in pointing out to me all that was best worth seeing. He and I were alone in the little galleries; at a second or third visit I had the Museum to myself, save for an attendant who seemed to regard a visitor as a pleasant novelty, and bestirred himself for my comfort when I wanted to make sketches. Nothing is charged for admission, yet no one enters. Presumably, all the Tarentines who care for archaeology have already been...
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CHAPTER IV. TARANTOCosenza is on a line of railway which runs northward up the Crati valley, and joins the long seashore line from Taranto to Reggio. As it was my wish to see the whole of that coast, I had the choice of beginning my expedition either at the northern or the southern end; for several reasons I decided to make straight for Taranto. The train started about seven o'clock in the morning. I rose at six in chill darkness, the discomfort of my room seeming worse than ever at this featureless hour. The waiter--perhaps he was the landlord, I left...
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CHAPTER III. THE GRAVE OF ALARICIt would have been prudent to consult with my driver as to the inns of Cosenza. But, with a pardonable desire not to seem helpless in his hands, I had from the first directed him to the _Due Lionetti_, relying upon my guide-book. Even at Cosenza there is progress, and guide-beooks to little-known parts of Europe are easily allowed to fall out of date. On my arrival---- But, first of all, the _dazio_. This time it was a serious business; impossible to convince the rather surly officer that certain of the contents of my portmanteau were...
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CHAPTER XL. HER REWARDThis was on Thursday. The two days which followed wers such as come very rarely in a London winter. Fog had vanished; the ways were clean and hard; between the housetops and the zenith gleamed one clear blue track of frosty sky. The sun--the very sun of heaven-- made new the outline of every street, flashed on windows, gave beauty to spires and domes, revealed whiteness in untrodden places where the snow still lingered. The air was like a spirit of joyous life, tingling the blood to warmth and with a breath freeing the brain from sluggish vapours....
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CHAPTER XXXIX. HER RETURNIt was a rainy autumn, and to Thyrza the rain was welcome. A dark, weeping sky helped her to forget that there was joy somewhere in the world, that there were some whom golden evenings of the declining year called forth to wander together and to look in each other's faces with the sadness born of too much bliss. When a beam of sunlight on the wall of her chamber greeted her as she awoke, she turned her face upon the pillow and wished that night were eternal. If she looked out upon the flaming heights and hollows...
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CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE TRUTHMrs. Ormonde was successful, but success did not bring her unmixed content. She was persuaded that what she had done was wholly prudent, that in years to come she would look back on this chapter of her life with satisfaction. Yet for the present she could not get rid of a shapeless misgiving. This little centre of trouble in the mind was easily enough accounted for. Granted that Thyrza could live quite well without Walter Egremont, it was none the less true that, in losing him, she lost a certainty of happiness--and does happiness grow on every thicket,...
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CHAPTER XXXVII. A FRIENDLY OFFICEOn the Friday when Thyrza, in her happiness, had said 'Tomorrow he comes,' Mrs. Ormonde also was thinking of a visitor, who might arrive at any hour. Nine days ago she had received a telegram from New York, informing her that Walter Egremont was there and about to embark for England. She, too, avoided leaving the house. Her impatience and nervousness were greater than she had thought such an event as this could cause her. But it was years now since she had begun to accept Walter in the place of her own dead son, and in...
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CHAPTER XXXVI. THYRZA WAITS'I can't promise, Mrs. Emerson, that my sister will come down and have tea with you. Please don't make any preparations; it's only perhaps.' Thyrza had looked into the sitting-room to say this late in the evening. 'Oh, but she must!' Clara pleaded. 'Why not, dear? Won't you let me see her at all, then?' Thyrza closed the door, which she had been holding open, and advanced into the room. She wore a dress of light hue, and had some flowers in her girdle. The past year had added a trifle to her stature; it could not add...
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CHAPTER XXXV. THREE LETTERS_Walter Egremont to Mrs. Ormonde. 'Where I to spend the rest of my natural life in this country-- which assuredly I have no intention of doing--I think I should never settle down to an hour's indulgence of those tastes which were born in me, and which, in spite of all neglect, are in fact as strong as ever. I cannot read the books I wish to read; I cannot even think the thoughts I wish to think. As I have told you, the volumes I brought out with me lay in their packing-cases for more than six months...
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CHAPTER XXXIV. A LOAN ON SECURITYYet again it was summer-time, the second summer since the parting between Lydia and her sister, all but the end of the second twelvemonth since the day when Thyrza had heard something that was not meant for her ears. In Walnut Tree Walk the evening was clear and warm. A man was going along the street selling flowers in pots; his donkey-cart was covered with leaf and bloom, and with a geranium under each arm, he trudged onwards, bellowing. Children were playing at five-stones on the pavement you heard an organ away in Kennington Road. Lydia...
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By The Ionian Sea: Notes Of A Ramble In Southern Italy - Chapter 18. Reggio
